Assyrian villages along the Khabur River in Syria’s northeast, including the town of Tell Tamer, are effectively held hostage by the Kurdish YPG militia amid ongoing fighting with the Syrian army.
As tensions persist in Syria’s Gozarto region, leading Assyrian political organizations have warned against further escalation, urging dialogue and the protection of civilian areas amid fighting between Kurdish PYD forces and the Syrian government.
Military developments across the Gozarto region have raised concern among Assyrians, as Syrian army advances roll back Kurdish control. While fears persist, community leaders report no casualties so far and continued efforts to keep Assyrian areas out of the fighting.
Saleh Mohammad Muslim, a senior PYD Kurdish leader who has controlled northeastern Syria since 2011, warned that Damascus demanding control of the region would plunge Syria into chaos and civil war.
A ceremony to lay the foundation stone for a Simele massacre memorial was overshadowed by controversial remarks from a Kurdish official and reports of imminent KRG plans to grab Assyrian land in the nearby village of Bakhtme.
Assyrian political parties are sounding the alarm over Kurdish plans to grab land areas belonging to the Assyrian village of Bakhetme in Northern Iraq.
Noor Matti, co-founder of the Shlama Foundation, has been named Assyria Post’s Assyrian of the Year 2025 in recognition of his unwavering commitment to improving lives in Assyria.
The systematic marginalization of Assyrians in northern Iraq was openly broadcast when a Kurdish television channel aired a report on land-grabbing of Assyrian lands, while simultaneously portraying Assyrians as “Christian Kurds,” reflecting a broader pattern of ethnic denial.
The killing of Assyrian colonel Zaid Jirjis was not motivated by sectarianism or terrorism but personal disputes, according to Iraq's ministry of interior.
Dozens of Assyrian graves were vandalized in Shaqlawa, near Erbil, in mid December, marking the latest incident in a string of Kurdish attacks against Assyrian cemeteries and churches in northern Iraq.
